Abstract

"Each engineering occupation is distinguished by the body of specific knowledge it has built up over time. Some scholars argue that the instrumentality of this historically established knowledge in the solution of everyday design problems renders formal education more important than experience; others counter that engineering work primarily demands practice-generated knowledge that individuals construct in the course of everyday activities. We address this argument by documenting the frequency with which engineers apply different types of knowledge with different derivations. Through field observations of structural engineers, we constructed a “knowledge profile” that indicated that two-thirds of the knowledge engineers employed was practice generated. Knowledge profiles like this could help differentiate among engineering occupations and serve as the foundation for conceptualizing occupations in a world of “knowledge work.” In addition, knowledge profiles could help university engineering education programs better target and mirror the knowledge demands of the profession."

Abstract

"As mathematics educators, we constantly read about the failure of our schools to prepare graduates for the mathematical requirements of the modern workplace. Most of us accept this idea without question, perhaps because calls for more mathematics education keep us employed. Yet it is surprising that more of us don’t question this “failure,” given the conventional wisdom that adults rarely use the mathematics they learned in school and that, when mathematics is needed in the workplace, computers handle it. In this era of national standard setting and high-stakes mathematics examinations for school students, it seems to behoove us to understand what are the mathematical requirements of today’s jobs and how well today’s workers meet them. Celia Hoyles, Richard Noss, Phillip Kent, Arthur Bakker, and other colleagues have led this area of research for years through major projects exploring the mathematics used by entry-level, intermediate, and professional employees in a range of fields. Improving Mathematics at Work is the most recent and possibly most extensive report on their ethnographic and design-based workplace studies."

Abstract

Abstract A major research concern for teacher education is the impact of university credentialing programs on K-12 teaching and the disjuncture between university-promoted practices and what teachers actually do in their classrooms. In particular, mathematicscredential programs typically promote reform-oriented methods, while mathematics teaching in the US remains largely traditional. Proposed explanations for the limited uptake of university-promoted mathematics-teaching methods have included new teachers’ struggle to bridge the ‘‘two worlds’’ of the university and school, the relative difficulty of reform-oriented teaching, and the failure of the standard teacher-preparation model that teaches general pedagogical concepts prior to specific teaching tools and practices. In this study, interviews of 19 first- through 4th-year secondary-level mathematics teachers— graduates of a single credential program—investigated the factors, internal and external to the credential program, that these teachers perceived to support or impede their implementation of certain university-taught practices. The findings are used to examine previously proposed explanations for limited uptake, and recommendations are made for credential programs and employing schools.

Abstract

Policymakers and education scholars recommend incorporating mathematical modeling into mathematics education. Limited implementation of modeling instruction in schools, however, has constrained research on how students learn to model, leaving unresolved debates about whether modeling should be reified and explicitly taught as a competence, whether it should be taught holistically or atomistically, and whether students’ limited domain knowledge is a barrier to modeling. This study used the theoretical lens of legitimate peripheral participation to explore how learning about modeling unfolds in a community of practice—civil engineering—known to develop modeling expertise among its members. Twenty participants were selected to represent various stages of engineering education, from first-year undergraduates to veteran practitioners. The data, comprising interviews, “think-aloud” problem-solving sessions, and observations of engineering courses, were analyzed to produce a description of how this professional community organizes learning about mathematical models and resolves general debates about modeling education.

Gainsburg, J., & Ericson, B. (2015). (Relatively) smooth sailing: How a large state university successfully adopted the PACT Teaching Event. The New Educator, 11(1), 24-36.

Abstract

In this article, the PACT Coordinator and former Department Chair of the Department of Secondary Education at a large state university describe how the PACT Teaching Event was introduced, piloted and implemented in their department. Despite the size and complexity of this department, PACT implementation went relatively smoothly, with widespread and positive participation by full-time and part-time faculty. The authors explain the successful implementation, drawing on data from faculty focus groups and campus leaders. The authors give recommendations for largescale credential programs that are considering implementing a high-stakes teacher-performance assessment.

Abstract

Background This study was motivated by the ubiquity and apparent usefulness of general epistemological development schemes, notably that of William J. Perry, Jr., in engineering education, but also by limitations that derive from their generality. Purpose/Hypothesis Empirical data were used to articulate engineering students’ epistemological views on the role of mathematical methods in engineering and to explore the fit of a stage-based developmental model to those data. Design/Method Data included interviews, think-aloud protocols, and classroom observations over a one-year period. Ten undergraduates and four instructors in a civil engineering program participated. A grounded-theory approach was used to identify levels of epistemological views. Perry’s scheme provided a starting framework. Skeptical reverence, the view veteran engineers hold regarding mathematics in engineering, which was previously identified by the author, was taken as a normative endpoint. All data were coded by view level and various contexts to detect students’ epistemological developmental patterns. Results This article proposes three categories of engineering students’ views on the role of mathematical methods in engineering: dualism, integrating, and relativism. Dualism and relativism reflect elements of Perry’s general categories, but integrating, a new category, diverges significantly from Perry’s middle category of multiplicity. No evidence supported a stage-based developmental model. Conclusions This empirically based scheme, while exploratory, provides further evidence that epistemological development differs across disciplines, and offers four levels of epistemological views held by engineering students on the role of mathematics in engineering. Conjectures about how to promote engineering students based on classroom observations, are also offered.